or: how I inadvertently gave my grandmother herpes

There are certain things that happen to you, things that let you know time is passing, that let you know you are getting older, wiser, experienced.

I have a funeral plant under my care.  A plant that my teacher (the teacher I had in the "gifted" program because I was such an "exceptional" child and was one of the kids who was yanked from regular classes to sit with other "exceptional" children and brainstorm and think creatively and abstractly while the rest of you nosepickers sat in neat little rows learning about... about... about... what?  It was always a mystery to us what the heck you all were doing in there while we were building circuits out of root vegetables, spit, and 9volts we brought in from our dads' junk drawers and tool boxes.  We guessed you were playing.  What did you guess we were doing?  Intellegence segregation is one of life's greatest mysteries.) sent to the funeral home for my grandmother's services. 

She came, by the way.  My teacher.  A few of my old teachers came, my grandmother was a librarian in the school district.  It was amazing to see them.  They're still old.  They were always old.

So, I have a funeral plant under my care because I wanted it because I truly loved the woman who picked it out special for my grandmother's funeral. 

I feel that it is a bigger responsibility than it probably actually is.  Like there should be a badge or title involved.

Lora: Funeral Plant Care Provider.

Keeping a plant alive. 
A death plant.
Keeping a death plant alive.

Four death plants actually, a philodendron, something palmish and spiked tall, something that looks like the top of a pineapple, and something with heart-shaped pinkish leaves, all jammed together in a white bowl that I'll probably put fruit in if the plants don't make it.

I have it on the window sill.  I tried to leave it with my mother because after the initial plant snatch and grab I doubted my ability to follow through with caring for this thing, but she brought it to Philadelphia when she was here for Halloween.  She's good with plants.  Me?  Fifty-fifty.

So, I jammed some of those plant food sticks in there, and I try to water it once in awhile.  Basically whenever someone leaves a glass of water in the living room I dump it in there before taking the cup out to the kitchen.  I turn the bowl every day, so it gets adequate sunlight on all sides.  Every day that I remember.

It sort of dried out and wilted today.  Maybe yesterday.  Maybe the day before that.  It is half behind the Christmas tree, so I half forgot about it. 

I panicked, the way I do. 

As if my actual grandmother had somehow gotten jammed over there on the windowsill, behind the Christmas tree and had drooped.  As if someway, somehow that plant is my grandmother, as if a tiny piece of her spirit leaked out of her soul and went into that plant so part of her can stay and watch over me and it is my duty, as her first-born grandchild, mother of her first-born great-grandchild to keep this small, green part of her alive so that she may live on in my house as well as in my heart.

So I grabbed something.  A water bottle that was left here.  Left here by someone with an active cold sore, which is why I didn't drink it myself.  I put it up so no one would drink it, so I could dispose of it properly, with one of those sealed red hazmat bags.  Not thinking clearly, I poured the water on the plant and immediately gagged. 

Gagged due to the coldsore germs which have probably multiplied ten-fold in the moist threads of the screw-top water-bottle cap and are no doubt working their way through the fragile root system of the death plant right now, infecting the delicate leaves and radiating through the air that all who enter my home will breathe in a sickening bi-genus photosynthetic circle of floral to faunal life support.  Houseplants have wormed their way in as a domestic staple, under the guise of cleaning the air and improving oxygen quality in the living spaces.  And I go and do something like this.

This is why I shouldn't be trusted with anything living that won't scream for my attention if I've turned away for too long.  Not because I'll give it a raging herpectic infection, per se.  But because I'll lose sleep thinking about the damage I may have caused by introducing biogenetic terror cells to lifeforms that have, for eons, been separated from mass destruction on a viral level.

Has anyone ever tried those little glass bulbs that you fill with water and jam in the soil so the plant sucks water as needed?  I'm thinking I should probably pick some of those up next time I'm standing near the As Seen on TV! endcaps at the drugstore.

we sit and make lists

Samantha and I were out yesterday.  Talking. Talking about how it's funny that Kids These Days are wearing the same things that were in way back when I was in high school.
You know, twenty years ago when I started high school?
Twenty Years?
Ago?

That's how you know your primetime has come and gone.  When things that were cool when you were cool are cool again.

Samantha was wearing some sort of version of something that I would have worn.  Twenty Years Ago.
And she looked all styley.

Things are a little different.  Instead of long johns people wear tights.  Instead of Doc Martens, Uggs.  Flannel seems of a different quality.  Thinner.  Tighter.  Pillier.  Brighter.  Less lumberjacky.  More, I don't know.  Urban?  Urbane?  Funny to think it's the same stuff that was made into men's suits.  It's got to have changed one hundredfold since then.

But it's all the same as it was back then.  Mensyish kinda clothes for the girls.  The same for the boys.  Hair all unilength all unistyle all unisex.

I'll admit that I'm sporting a deep side part.  A little unkempt.  A little dirty.  A little grade ten. 
I'm enjoying the resurgence in eyeliner.  God, I love eyeliner.

When I see a teenager in those sort of clothes, I feel younger. 
Good because I'm too young to feel old, and I'm still young enough to be cool, ish. 
Bad because it's sort of creepy to look at a 15 year old as a peer. 

As a benchmark. 
As an icon. 

Bad because I feel teen angst.

Fashion is the new Facebook.

Ohmygod.  It's her.  Ohmygod.  Here he comes.  Ohmygod.  Here he comes with her. 
I'm too fat/skinny/ugly/pretty/stupid/smart/tall/short.  I'm wrong.  Everyone else is right.  Someone is going to laugh.  At me.

Fifteen year old children have the capability to make me feel less.

Even though I'm more.
So so so so so much more.

So much more than I ever was then.  So much more than they may ever be.  So much more than I ever thought I would be when I was just like them.  When being just like them was cool the first time around.

I have a shirt leftover from high school.  One shirt.  Men's.  Circa 1993.  Sized large.  Gap.  Plaid.  Buttondown.  Colors that don't exist anymore.  Spiced mustard.  Dusty teal.  Neon maroon.  Grapety purple.  I'm bringing it back into rotation. 
The kids are gonna go wild over it.

All day long I've been meaning to come up with a sentimental and moving way to say thank you to our veterans and service members while giving recognition and gratitude to their families who stay at home and keep the fires burning and candles in the windows for our soldiers.

A witty Facebook status update, a touching blog post.  A tribute in two hundred words or less.  I couldn't come up with anything.  I didn't want to discount the soldiers by paying too much homage to their mothers and fathers and partners and spouses and children and hell- their damned dogs (because have you seen that video?  omg) but I didn't want to forget the mothers and fathers and partners and spouses and children and those damned dogs when they do so much for our country by standing strong and true while their soldiers are off and fighting.

How to say it?
What to say?

***

So, there's an Applebees around the corner from my office.  Applebees offers free meals to Veterans and Active Duty Service Members today.  Every Veteran's Day, I'd imagine.  This afternoon there was a group of homeless vets waiting outside.  Waiting in line for their turn to eat.

I'm not sure how to put my feelings in words, but there it was.  You can picture it for yourself.

The men we see every day here in downtown Philadelphia, with their cardboard signs and ragged boots, worn camouflage jackets and military patches, the men we walk over and away from, avoid and ignore, depending on fucking Applebees for a thank you and a full belly.

***

I know how this happens.  I've seen it, in my own family.  I know that the war military families fight at home can be a dangerous one.  One of heartbreak and loss.  Of frustration and desperation.  Of anger and sadness.  I know that sometimes families lose that war.

For those of you mothers and fathers and partners and spouses and children and even you damned dogs who have fought and those of you still fighting, thank you.  Thank you for supporting our soldiers.  Thank you for standing behind the men and women who stand up for us.

And thank you soldiers.  For those of you who are safe at home, may you stay that way always.  For those of you at training and at war, may you come home safely and soundly and soonly and foreverly.

repost

That's Joe Frazier's Gym.  Joe Frazier's Gym is for sale.

Who is Joe Frazier?  An old prize fighter.  I think he was famous back in the early 1970's.  Whenever Muhammad Ali was around.  And George Foreman.  I don't know much about fighting, prize or otherwise, but I know that Joe and Geo and Muhammad were enemies.  Or rivals.  Or maybe friends who fought.  I don't know.  What do I know about that sort of thing?

Anyway.  That's Joe Frazier's Gym.  Or was.  Or is but won't be when it's sold.

It's up there on North Broad.  And Glenwood.  Most people like you and me have no business up there.  It's north of Temple U and sits amongst storefront churches and windowless mosques and sketchy funeral parlors and homeless shelters that smell like bleach and rehab clinics that smell like ammonia and I wonder if you left the clinic and went into the shelter without properly clearing your lungs you could die from the mix of fumes so I never risk it and always go once around the block before switching venues.

Then again, once around that block and I might get shot.  Or stolen.
Do you know how much you can get for a cute white chick in those parts?
I don't know either.  Mad cash, I'll bet.

***

About fifteen years ago I walked into Joe Frazier's Gym.  I was twenty.  Fresh faced.  Armed with a case file and a bus pass and determination to make the world a little safer.

It was there I took on my first bad guy.  My very own rapist and murderer.
A big black rapist and murderer.
Who boxed.
Professionally.
And taught boxing.
To professionals.
At Joe Frasier's Gym.

He didn't kill the girl he raped or anything.
He wasn't that sort of bad guy.
He was accused of raping a girl after he got her pregnant.  A girl he later married.
And spent the rest of her life with.
It was some sort of statutory offense.  She was almost 17 he was barely 18.  He was sentenced to ten years in jail.  Her daddy was a lawyer.  A white lawyer.  It was the early sixties.

Stuff like that happened back then.
I think there is a song about that or something.

Or something.

So, he got out of jail six years later on account of good behavior and being young and he married that girl and raised some babies.  The baby they made together years before didn't survive.  Her big shot daddy made her get an abortion.
He learned to box in prison and when he got out he was better than a lot of the guys who didn't spend their formative years in jail so he made a job of it and took his cute wife and kids all around the country and won some money and a little bit of fame and then when he got tired of that he moved back here and made a little life for himself.

And late one night after the kids were asleep and he and the wife went to bed, there was something going on in the neighborhood and he came outside to take a look around and decided to get involved and ended up punching out two people when they started walking up his front step and those two people never got up.  On account of him being a prize fighter and them just being petty street thugs who didn't have time to pull their guns out of their waistband.

Because those dead guys were menaces and because they were on his steps and because they had unregistered guns the sentence was mitigated, but a murder sentence was a murder sentence and murderers go to jail.

So, off to jail.  Again.
And in jail.  Again.
And out.  Again.

And by then his babies weren't babies anymore and they spent the time he was away growing up and having babies of their own.
And his wife, who got sick while he was in jail, died.  Shortly after he got out.
Shortly before his name came across my desk.
The name of my very first bad guy.  My very own rapist and murderer.

A big black rapist and murderer.
Who boxed.
Professionally.
Once upon a time.

So there I was, walking  into Joe Frasier's Gym.  I was twenty.  And armed with a case file and a bus pass and determination to make the world a little safer.  And Joe Frazier himself.  And Joe asked me if I was ready, if I wanted him to stay with me, and I said, "no thank you Mr. Frazier, I think I'll be okay from here.  I'll holler if I need you."

And I walked up to my very first bad guy and said, "hello there.  Can we take a walk?" and we went once around that block.
And after the formalities and after the case assignment paperwork and parole agreement was filled out and after we shook hands my very first bad guy said something like this to me: "thank you, Miss Arrowsmith.  Thank you for not talking about this stuff in front of everyone at the gym.  Especially in front of those little boys playing in the ring.  See, those're my grandsons and they don't know about my past.  My kids are giving me the chance to watch them little boys grow up.  To spend some time with them and let them see me do what I do best.  Teaching people.  To fight.  Teaching people to fight... responsibly.  Thank you for letting me be a Good Strong Guy in their eyes, even if just for one more day.  Word'll get out sometime, I'm sure.  But thank you for not making today be that day.  Thank you for treating me so kindly."

And that's how I knew that no matter what, I'd be okay at this sort of work.  That I'd be good at this sort of job.  That I'd be good with people.  Even if they were big and black and strong with a rape and a couple murders under their big old shiny gold prizebelts.

I'm sure a lot of people realized a lot of stuff there, at Joe Frazier's Gym.  I'm sure a lot of people realized who they are and what they are capable of and how strong they are and where those strengths come from, at Joe Frazier's Gym.

I'm sure I did.

(originally posted 11/11/10)
Rest well, Old Joe.

toy story

I tuned into CNN this morning to see if they would report on how everyone is doing in Haiti.

You know, since they are experiencing Round Two of God's Wrath.

Ding ding.

But the top story this morning was on San Francisco yanking toys out of the Happy Meals.

Most likely God's Plan to punish children of LGBTQ parents, I'm guessing.

I'm sure you know, that in SF now you cannot include a toy or special incentive with a meal if there is more than 600 calories and if more than 30% of the calories come from fat and I think there is something in there about you have to have so many servings of fruits and/or vegetables, but I'm not totally sure on that.

Jake watched the story, and asked if they were saying what he thinks they're saying.  I told him that one city was taking the toys out of Happy Meals because the food is so unhealthy.
"Oh", he said.  "Well, I guess we don't need to go to McDonald's anymore if I'm not going to get a toy".

Exactly. 
From the mouths of babes.

It's not so much the food, it's the toy.  At least with my kid.

"You can get chicken nuggets and fries anywhere.  You can't get a toy just anywhere."
"So every time you ask for McDonald's, you want the toy, not necessarily the food?"
"Yes."

the votes are in.

I had the privilege of sitting in a room of about a dozen men and a few of their wives a couple weeks ago.  They were all white, with the exception of maybe two who were maybe Hispanic.  Maybe.  They were all parents, as it was a parenting group.  They were all kind of sort of educated.  High school, perhaps a tech degree and a few had gone to college.  They were mostly union guys, longshore men, factory people, blue collar workers.  All of them who voted in the last presidential election voted for Obama.

And now they are out of a job.  All of them.  Over the past three years, every single one of them had lost their job.  And they blame it on Obama.  So, this election they were all voting and they were all voting Republican.

They're scared.  And frustrated.  And downright angry.  And feeling hopeless.  And less manly than they used to feel now that bacon isn't being brought home so much any more.  But mostly scared.

They are living off the dole, as they call it up there in that neighborhood.  Not welfare.  God no.  But unemployment and special health care and food drive donations and school uniform vouchers and free bus tokens and utility payouts from the local community center and some of them moved the family in with grandmom and and and.

I'm guessing there are lots of these guys all over the place.
The red maps on CNN this morning backs up that guess.
Not all those red votes came from rich people.  Or white people.  Or Christians.  Or (insert Republican stereotype here).

People are scared.  People are scared and hungry and either already or verging on homeless and jobless.  Real people.  People like our dads and brothers and sons.  And mothers and sisters and daughters.  People who had hope for a better life after the last election and were let down.  So, they voted the other way yesterday.

Republicans in office aren't necessarily going to lower taxes or bring back jobs.  Especially jobs for Joe Sixpack or whatever the buzzname was a few years ago.  Factory jobs and manufacturing jobs have been long gone.  Those that remained after Obama was in office were flukes.  Throwbacks.  Dying breeds.  People have been replaced by computers and robots.  Jobs like those available to most undereducated Americans have sort of faded into oblivion in our high-tech lifetime.
Customer relations and data logging and resourcing and manufacturing jobs are overseas now.  Because people overseas accept less pay and lower benefits that we do here.  That's big business for you.  Not caring about the little guy.  Just about the dollars that line the top brass' pockets.  But this isn't new.  I remember twenty years ago my grandmother refusing to buy things that weren't Made in America.  She didn't buy much for quite some time.  She used to buy my clothes out of catalogs, and before I was allowed to try them on, she checked the label.   Lots got sent back.  A lot a lot.  It would take my grandad hours at the hardware store to find something he needed that was made here.  And we lived in a Tool and Die town.  But we couldn't buy anything locally  made at local businesses.  Man, did that make him mad.

Obama and his merry band of Democrats didn't take away jobs.  Greed did.  Need did.  Supply and demand.  Dollars and cents.  Progress.  Regress.  The changing of the times more so than the changing of the guards.

Many of the programs supplied by "the dole", programs keeping people alive and fed and clothed and sheltered are run by grants put out through Democratic initiative.  Your tax dollars at work.  Programs that will likely be closed once the current payouts are dry.

When I talk of these things to some of my friends, some of my family, they assume that the food and the money and the clothes and the whatever is going to drug addicts and lazy people.  No.  It's going to people who are just like us.  Normal people who lived normal lives until one day, they just weren't anymore.  People laid off and downsized and forced to retire without a retirement plan.  There isn't much at all going to drug addicts and lazy people these days.  That's why you see them roaming around.  And on the evening news.  And in the headlines.  Too many normal people are in need of what little there is going around.
Many of the people who accept the dole think that the gifts are coming from the church or the school district or the transportation company or the goodness of other people's hearts.  No.  The church is crumbling, the schools are in disarray, SEPTA is a g.d. mess, and people's hearts can't afford to be that good so much anymore.

It's scary.

No matter what your political affiliation.

Anger and fear and frustration are not cause for tantrums or tears or giving up or giving in.  Not in these times, not in any times.  It's not a time to whine or complain or bitch over the back fence.  It's not a time to yell or scream or kick the dog or slap the wife or spank the kids.  Nor to get drunk or max out the credit card or crawl under the blanket for a year.

Negative feelings are a cue that your body gives you that it is time to act now to change your situation.  To fight or flight, but to never freeze.  Nor freak.
It's a gift.  One that few people know what to do with.  Like a holiday sweater or a subscription to Popular Science.

If you are happy with yesterday's election results, get out there and do something to be sure that the initiatives and platforms that won you over are put into action.  Don't expect the politicians to do it for you.  Don't expect them to stay true to their word.  We've been let down before and it will happen again. 
If you are not happy with yesterday's results, get out there and do something to be sure that the initiatives and platforms that you stand for which will not likely be addressed by the elected officials are put into action.  Don't expect anyone else to do it for you.  Don't expect the officials to stay true to their word, you can make the difference.  Swing their stance.  Be heard.

You are current administration.  Not them.  They are the puppets, you hold the strings.  Keep true to yourself and true to your beliefs and work hard for others to work hard for you.  Be powerful.  Be strong.  "Be the change you wish to see in the world" (Gandhi wrote that.  Not me).
Do you want a greener America?  Start in your house, in your yard.  Do you want a job?  Lay down your pride and start with something small.  McDonald's writes out paychecks.  Surprise!  More tolerance, more acceptance?  Start practicing it yourself.  Love your neighbors no matter who they are, what color their faces are, which way they vote, where they pray, who they go to bed with.

Dog people, love thine fellow cat people.  Cat people, dogs are okay too.  Normal pet people, pull together to fight against people who are into weird pets.  Like monkeys and exotic spiders.  Ick.
 Most of us are somewhere left or somewhere right of the middle, very few of us are way way out there.  We have more in common than we care to admit.  Let's use this time when we all have a voice to figure out how we can pull through this together.

Use your fear and hope and courage and apprehension and victories and defeats to make the world a little bit brighter, to make us live a little bit tighter.